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The Person You Needed When You Were Younger

Think back to when you were a kid. You were always reaching for the next goal and never looked back. With mixed emotions, you anticipated kindergarten, you couldn’t wait until Christmas, and your next birthday was always just around the corner.

When you started riding a tricycle, you anticipated the day you could move to a big boy bike. And then when you got the hang of things, you couldn’t wait for those training wheels to come off.

Kids move through different stages, handling different issues, and always wanting to be a little more grown up. Children don’t want to be treated like a child. And certainly the same is true for preteens.

When I was a preteen, I remember sitting in those little chairs, hearing the same Bible stories that I had heard before. A gap had formed. While I was struggling with some tough sins, I was sitting in a room hearing about Adam and Eve sinning and had no idea how it applied to my own life.

I already knew that sin was disobeying God. I already knew that Adam and Eve were the first sinners. And in fact, thinking about their story and them being naked was going to cause me to sin. I didn’t need to be taught the facts again with puppets and felt boards like I was a child.

What I needed was someone to be my friend and walk me through my personal disobedience. What I needed was to be treated as a preteen.